Quote:
Originally Posted by raizscanlon
Yes I wanted to set the start to the very first piece of text (not necessarily the cover itself, but immediately after) and as far as Amazon's Guidelines suggest, then the start point can be set (though they don't specific the technical process for this).
BUT what they don't explain is that it would need to be set in a specific way, as if it comes before the TOC then they will override that and make the start point happen after the TOC (and it looks like the first Anchor).
As you say, I haven't tried "in the middle of some text" before the TOC in which case, would it work?
I'm not sure it would, as the rep's response (in my post #142) seemed to suggest they would always look at the "Start of content" as being after the TOC and therefore will force that if there isn't one already.
I had a response back from my "yes" response to their offer to reset the SRL:
You certainly learn something everyday in the world of self-publishing!
Tnx for your input  |
No, I can tell you from experience, and a long, drawn-out argument with my Tech. Acct. Rep at Amazon, that
that (setting a SRL on a text page prior to the TOC)
does not work. And trust me when I say, there is absolutely no straight answer on this. (More below the multi-quote)
Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
OK, that's clear now. You are indeed setting the start to the beginning of the book (the cover isn't part of the book in Kindle formats), and Amazon is noticing this and is generating an 'appropriate' start position.
It's nice that they've got back to you about this point, so hopefully your problems with this title will now be sorted out to your satisfaction.
I suspect that if you set a start position that isn't the very first bit of the text in the book, Amazon will leave the start position alone. But this is just an educated guess. I haven't tested it recently.
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We had a rather heated argument with Amazon in late January, on this very topic. We had a book we'd published (created, gave to author, to be clear) in December, which had an SRL set to the Introduction, which appeared as front-matter should, before the TOC. So the sequence was:
Cover
Something else
Introduction
TOC
Half-title
Chapter 1
Amazon set the SRL to Chapter 1, which was problematic, as the Intro contained a clue to an actual (real) treasure hunt, the clues for which were scattered not only throughout the book but in physical places that you couldn't possibly find had you not read the Introduction's clues.
As it turns out--mostly--Amazon has now changed their PW (Publishing Workflow, which is everything that occurs after the author clicks "save and publish") to set the SRL to the first "content" that they perceive after the TOC. Ignoring, as it were, the half-title page. We argued with them at some length, and I asked them to tell me exactly when they'd made this change, as we have hundreds of books out there from the end of last year with SRL's that we set, in the ePUB, somewhere in the frontmatter, as authors are convinced that everyone really does want to read their dedication, acknowledgments, thanks, etc., (even though our data doesn't indicate this).
Now, three weeks later, a different conversion house with a different Tech Acct Rep wrote to Amazon, and were told precisely the opposite--that the SRL could be set wherever they wanted. (Of course: they were also told that FF could not be made in landscape, so...take that for what it's worth). This is a real conversion house, doing lots o'biz, so it's not some fly-by-night nobody that was told this gibberish. I've asked for clarification (from the Veep of Digital Services, directly, on the damn phone, BTW), and
I still don't have a coherent answer as to what's real.
Because the PW occurs after the upload, after the alleged 'conversion,' after you are able to download the preview book (which worked perfectly, for the book in question),
you can't see what has occurred to your book unless/until you actually buy it. Now, this might be all well and good for the average DIY'er, but I have zero desire to buy 800 books a year that I already HAVE sitting here because Amazon thinks that the authors who are uploading Word files are so damn stupid that they can't be trusted to set their own SRL bookmark! I mean...
I've instructed my crews to set all SRL's, no exception, after the TOC. What irritates the holy hell out of me is that this means that if we have something that
must have the SRL set to it, that's frontmatter, we have to put it AFTER the Table of Contents, which makes the thing look like Amateur Hour. And worse, the constant "yes you can," "no you can't," and when I put together a carefully constructed timeline of all the inconsistent and outright contradictory answers I'd received from the Mgr. of Digital Services, I
still don't have an answer.
Frustrating isn't the word. No wonder Josh sold to Firebrand. Between Amazon, which up until lately I've really loved, B&N (worst customer service in the WORLD), Apple (no standard is too good that we can't break just to be "cooler") and Kobo ("We're not using Calibre," "oh, wait, yes we are")...it's a freaking miracle I'm not bald.
Hitch
RANT-RANT-RANT not over.